Wednesday, October 05, 2011

Thanda Matlab CocaCola :-)

Well, It has been a while, since I last wrote a blog. But then, there are far too many things happening on personal and professional front, so as to keep be too occupied to find time for my writings.

Recently during one of Toast Master Sessions, the table-topic that I choose to speak on was the famous Coca Cola tagline: Thandha Matlab Coca Cola. I tried recollecting my thoughts and came across a nice anecdote from my childhood days, which made for an interesting speech (at least, judging my audience's response), as it resulted into me being duly rewarded with "Best Table Topic Speaker" award at the end of the session. Unlike Toast Master Table Topics, where I am constrained by a 2 minute duration for my speech (plus or minus 30 seconds grace period), there is no such restriction imposed on my writings, as far as my blog is concerned :-). After all, this is my blog-space, is not it ;-)

Every time, I hear this catch-phrase "Thanda matlab Coca Cola", I can't help but go back to my school days, busy doing my utmost preparation, so that I could be go as part of a "Baraat Party". One of my cousin was getting married and he happened to be married to a girl from a somewhat rich family. When we reached bride's place, we were served with cold-drinks, not in bottles or cans, but in plastic glasses (also called "Piyo Pheko" glasses in rural lingo). As far as my memory goes, this was (probably) my first encounter with Soft Drinks. In all the marriages, attended before, we used to be served with Sugar (at times saccharin too, if situation demanded aggressive cost-cutting :-)) based "Sarbat", laced with tinge of Rasna (Remember the catch line from 90's : "I Love You Rasna"). So when I was served with a glass bearing a black colour, full of Coca Cola, looking different from all the previous Sarbat-Offering, I was little apprehensive about tasting it. But I had no choice, so I just accepted it gracefully, held it in my right hand, pretended to drink it and started watching others as to what they were planning to do or already doing with their glasses.

In one corner, we had our grand father, sitting and chatting with his cousins and friends(in the same age group). The conversation was somewhat typical to people from old generations, which went like this

Sushil : What is this black coloured substance, they have served to us. Does any of you have any idea as to what this could be ??

Falgu : No clue, I have attended enough marriages in my lifetime, but never seen anything like this. Must be something specific to towns and cities, as I don't remember coming across anything of this sort before in villages.

Grand Pa (patting his falling forehead with his right hand) : I feel sorry for this younger generation. They are going no where (with a voice filled with sorrow). Look, what they have done. They started serving liquors openly during marriages. Even in our times, we used to have it served, but only to a selected few individuals and that too under the table. But, sadly times have changed. Those were the golden old days !!

Without they realizing it, I was eavesdropping on their conversation. In my school books and elsewhere, I had read enough about liquor and evil effects of its consumption. So on hearing this, I almost felt happy and vindicated of sorts, that I had not touched and tasted the so-called wine-glass.

But then there were few hooligan-types, so called macho-men in brides' side, who were drinking coca-cola in big-gulps and were even asking for more. When they saw the gang of my grand-father and few other oldies not even touching these soft-drinks, they went berserk. They started mocking and making fun of us, few of them even started hooting us (it is almost fashionable for people from bride's side to be making fun/mockery of people on groom's side. In general, it is kept within acceptable limits, but sometimes, it does tend to go a little overboard though). They were shouting at the top of their voice : Thanda Matlab Coca Cola..Thanda Matlab Coca Cola ..

I silently watched all this proceedings from side lines and thought to myself "Why are these people going mad over some gentlemen not touching these black-coloured offerings, which (in their opinion) could possibly be wine ??". For a moment, I thought that all these turbo-charged people were doing, what they were doing, under the influence of alchohol. But at the same time, I didn't want myself to be classified alongside these old orthodox people, so I decided to give cold-drinks an honest try. I took the first ship, but I could not swallow even a single drop of it. The moment, it crossed my throat, I felt like a burning train moving through my digestion-system. For a moment, I thought of throwing it, but then I was leaving myself up for abuse by these hooligans. So I gave it another try. To my surprise (and many others who were with me), I showed enough perseverance to try it second time and this time, I was able to swallow half of it. I was glad, that finally, I was taking it. But little did I realize, that was hardly the end of my troubles. From that point onwards, every time, I bulged, I could feel the Carbon Dioxide gas coming out of my nostrils and through my mouth, creating burning sensation in both the places.

As I write this, I can still feel that chilling sensation running through my body, as I get nostalgic about those days. So when did you first had an encounter with soft-drinks ?? When was the first time, you actually tasted it and ended up finishing one or two glasses ??

Total PageViews

IndiRank

About Me

Following two blog-posts pretty much covers everything about me
http://sumansays.blogspot.com/2005/04/story-of-iit-kgp-computer-science.html
http://sumansays.blogspot.com/2010/05/icebreaker-speech-toastmasters.html
If there is anything more you are interested in knowing, feel free to ask me directly :-) by sending an email to sumanjee@gmail.com or a tweet @sumanjee